Accessible Writing Techniques
The following guidelines can help you to develop an accessible writing style:
- Write concise descriptions to help people with cognitive, vision, and hearing impairments. As recommended elsewhere in this guide, keep sentences to one idea. Do not ramble.
- Keep the number of steps in procedures to a minimum. More than seven procedural steps can create problems for all users, but pose additional difficulties for people with cognitive impairments.
- Do not use directional instructions, if at all possible, such as above, below, left, right. Users who are using a screenreader might have difficulty finding the directions on screen. Some users with cognitive impairments might have difficultly understanding the spatial concepts.
- Emphasize important information near the beginning of the text, so that blind users and users with cognitive impairments can assess whether they need to read further.